Talk on Open Source Databases

Thursday the 7th of October a presentation was given on Open Source databases during an Amis (Server Development and Programming Languages) Knowledge Center meeting. The aim was to present a survey on Open Source databases and to make a comparison with commercial databases, in particular Oracle, of course.

Part I of this presentation introduced JDBC.

Part II surveyed Java Open Source databases, such as HSqlDb, Axion, Derby and Xindice.

Part III introduced non-Java Open Source databases, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, MaxDB and Ingress.

The presentation concluded with an introduction of some GUI-based tools and a demo with HSqlDb running in a JBoss environment, making use of the HsqlDb database manager tool.

Since AMIS for now prefers to focus offering solutions based on one Open Source database only (of course, only when Oracle is ‘too big’), pro’s and con’s were discussed on MySQL and PostgreSQL. For now it is left undecided if we are going to support either PostgreSQL or MySQL.

Thereafter Lucas Jellema presented the most prominent features with which Oracle distinghuishes itself from the Open Source alternatives. Here is his presentation (partly in Dutch)

Finally, there was the possibility to participate in a small workshop. During this workshop particpants were asked to install MySQL on a windows machine and to import the EMP and DEPT tables from the Oracle database, which were available in a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file.

You can download the annotated PowerPoint presentation (.ppt) here. The PDF version will be available upon request.

Just wanted to take a moment to thank you for posting the Presentation notes. Very interesting. I really liked the comparisons of the java based RDBMS. Wish you could have spent a little bit more time dicussing the administrative tools, if any, and the features of the Cloudscape–>Apache Derby database.

Also, just for your information, there is active work on a Native version of PostgreSQL on windows. Version 8.0 beta is available. Not recommended for production use of course, but from what I’ve read it’s definitely installable and usable. Comes as a native windows installer, too.

It’s not completely perfect, but getting better all the time. Make sure you shut down your virus software before installing. apparently there are some issues with completing the process when the virus checker is on…